“I was scared. I was really scared,” said Alhaddad, who is Muslim. “I don’t know what to do.”

He considered leaving the country if Trump was elected. Alhaddad called his father. Dad’s advice: stay put.

Shortly after the November, election Alhaddad went to his University Place mosque to pray. When he returned to his car, he found a note on it.

It was a letter from some non-Muslim community members expressing their support for the Muslim community.

“I felt safe,” Alhaddad recalled. “It feels good.”

GROWING UP YEMENI

Alhaddad’s father moved the family to Saudi Arabia from Yemen to start a jewelery business in the 1990s. Alhaddad was born in Saudi Arabia and grew up there in a Yemeni community but cannot become a Saudi citizen.

“I feel Yemeni,” he said.

Yemen is a small country on the Arabian and Red seas, bordered by Saudi Arabia and Oman. Culturally, Alhaddad said, it’s very similar to Saudi Arabia. Both are Muslim-majority countries and residents speak Arabic.

Alhaddad’s family, which includes five sisters and one brother, often traveled to Yemen to visit grandparents and other family.